Creating Colette

I read this literary biography in just a few days, testament to its engrossing information. The book paints a parade of colorful personalities in Belle Epoche France. Colette's story is the tale of "Gigi" before and after. Her development was influenced by her talented parents: Sido, a mother with strong opinions that included freedom for her children and scorn for ritual--Catholicism, Father Christmas, and the constraints of bourgeois marriage; and Jules Colette, the extroverted and literary father who trained 8-year-old Gabri (Colette) to make speeches for him on the political stump. Her "drop of negro blood," which the authors take chapters to describe, seems overemphasized; little information is given about her paternal forbears. This volume's most sympathetic figure is Colette's first husband Willy, portrayed as mentor for Colette's literary career. Written by two French authors (no translator listed), some parts of the book are are clogged with non sequiturs, but the majority of the volume offers a lovely and pungent narrative. Colette's first year of marriage to Willy is delicately and evocatively described. Absorbing and readable, the biography nevertheless creates in the reader a yearning for a biographer who might capture Colette's inner life. Linda Donelson, author of "Out of Isak Dinesen: Karen Blixen's untold story"